Questionnaire Design

Questionnaires Inexpensive – postage and photocopies Potential of large # of respondents Easy to administer confidentially – embarrassing questions More difficult to claim complete objectivity with questionnaire then with a tightly controlled lab test. Ex. How long did it take you to learn software program?

Objectives of Survey Need to have a clear goal and purpose If not it will overlook important issues and waste participants time by asking useless questions. Don’t ask broad and generalizing questions Can’t identify a problem, cause or solution.

Writing the Questionnaire Already decided what kind of data we are to measure and decided on a participant group. Demographic information (beginning-easy) Income – don’t ask unless you have rational for suspecting a variance across income levels. If need personal info. Phrase your questions unobtrusively to avoid ruffling your participants.

Kinds of Questions Open format – No predetermined set of responses. Subjective data Get unexpected and insightful suggestions Usually at end of questionnaire to get ideas for changes or improvements. Have to be read individually (more time and $) Closed format – multiple choice Objective data Easy to calculate/tabulate Easy to track opinion over time by administering the same questionnaire at regular intervals Filter out useless or extreme answers that happen in open format questionnaires

Points that must be considered Clarity Causes the greatest # of mistakes Goal – to eliminate the chance that the question will mean different things to different people Ex. Very Often or 5 – 10 times a week Leading Forces or implies a certain type of answer. Ex. Superb, Excellent, Great, Good, Fair, Not Good

Embarrassing Hypothetical Prestige Bias Avoid – If uncomfortable you will lose their trust. Hypothetical If you were governor, what would you do Never considered – doesn’t produce clear data Prestige Bias Answer in a way to make them feel better Make questionnaire private – telephone is better than one-on-one. The farther away the researcher is the more hones the answers

Now What? Observe a few test questionnaire takers. Work together to solve the problems. Remember: One does not collect data and then see if they found something interesting. One forms a hypothesis and an experiment that will help prove or disprove the hypothesis. A questionnaire is only as good as the questions it contains